EF0 tornado in Harris County, Georgia

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City confirmed that a brief EF0 tornado touched down approximately five miles southeast of Hamilton and tracked east-northeast just 0.43 mile before lifting. The maximum path width was 50 yards with maximum wind speeds of 75 mph. Ten trees along the path of the tornado were topped. In addition, a gazebo and storage shed were destroyed by the tornado. While there was widespread damage to trees and power lines across much of the county, other than the damage noted along this brief path, all of the other damage was the result of strong thunderstorm wind gusts and not a tornado.

[04/15-04/16/11: Tornado #1, County #1-1, EF0, Harris, 2011:007].

A deep, slow moving, negatively tiltled and highly diffluent upper trough was sweeping from the south central into the southeast U.S. during the April 15th and 16th period. A strong Pacific cold front accompanied the upper-level trough. An unseasonably warm, moist and unstable air mass was present across the southeast U.S. in advance of this weather system. An initial line of strong to severe thunderstorms began to move into northwest Georgia during the late afternoon hours of April 15th. As the line progressed further into the state, it evolved more in a large area of showers and thunderstorms with discrete supercells across especially central Georgia. These supercells produced damaging winds, hail, and three tornadoes. As the event continued into the early morning hours of the 16th, the severity decreased, but widespread rain and thunderstorms, along with isolated severe thunderstorms continued until around daybreak. In addition to the severe weather events, the prolonged and heavy rain event resulted in flash flooding along north Atlanta metropolitan area creeks and streams.